Yesterday, in my diary, "The hidden manufacturing consensus", I said that one of most impressive things I ran into at Netroots Nation was a poll on manufacturing conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing by the Melman Group. I presented just one chart from the presentation of the poll results--delivered by Mark Melman--showing the strength of support for investing in manufacturing and prioritizing the creation of manufacturing jobs. I now want to drill down a bit deeper to discuss some of the other findings from the poll.
Let's begin with a couple questions that help set the stage, asking about people's perception of what's important for the nation's economy and for national security. Economy first:
Talk about a blindingly clear picture of how the Obama Administration has missed the boat in connecting with the American people's concerns. Under the spell of Geithner and Summers, Obama still thinks that Wall Street finance is the most important part of the American economy. It's a big part of the reason why he can't seem to focus on helping the real economy with anything more than token efforts. His virtual neglect of the industrial Midwest has been shocking, but these figures show that it's far more than a regional problem.
And for national security, the results are similar, if not quite so lop-sided:
The idea that other sectors of the economy can replace manufacturing is soundly and broadly rejected:
One of most impressive things I ran into at Netroots Nation was a poll on manufacturing conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing by the Melman Group. I'll have more to say about the poll tomorrow--and my link here is by way of a heads up for those who just don't want to wait. But right now, I just want to share one chart from the entire presentation, because it helps to illustrate a very important point: despite decades of neglect by our political leaders in Versailles, the issue of manufacturing jobs as a core national necessity has as much salience as any of the favorite Versaille issues of the moment. And here are the figures to prove it:
Of course there's no doubt that "Creating manufacturing jobs" gets a boost from the even more popular "Creating jobs". But look at "Strenghtening manufacturing in the country," which is lower down in the "most important", but second only to "Creating jobs" in the total of "most important" and "very important". Now some of the other top-rated issues are basically just long-time conservative issues, products of decades of hegemonic warfare, pushed forward in the absence of any coherent progressive counter-narratives.
But that's all the more reason to take note of the importance of manufacturing--not least because it strikes such a contrary note to the predeclictions of the neo-liberals, whose current dominance of the Obama Administration is proving so damaging for the Democrats, who really ought to be cementing their dominance for the next forty years right now.
As I said, I'll have more to say about manufacturing in light of this poll tomorrow. But let this serve as a clarion call--this is key to how we move forward in asserting an economic politics of inclusion, a politics that's bottom-up and works for everyone, not just for those who think they can talk such a good game.
Great News! The good life will soon return to America. Auspiciously, months before the holiday shopping season began, Americans were told that after more than a year of fiscal recession, or what some have characterized as akin to an economic depression, consumers were optimistic. The confidence index and other indicators were much improved. Manufacturing executives assured the public, the engine that drives the free enterprise system was in a "sustainable recovery mode." In the very near future, products, and people's sense of need, would be fabricated again. Everything will be right with the world, economically. Few feared the threat that, long ago, Americans had come to accept. The foundation of a democratic system had eroded in favor of consumption.
The American manufacturing industry and its employees are constantly told that they need to be better competitors in the global market, that they must increase the value they add. How are they doing on that?
Something that jumps out from data about the share of global manufacturing had by the United States, China and five other industrialized nations, is that the US is about even with China. As of 2008 and according to UN figures, China's manufacturing accounts for 17.3 percent of world output in dollars (though this number is slightly inflated), while the US' share is 17.7 percent. All else is rarely equal, so this is about as close as you'll get in the real world.
From a Bureau of Labor Statistics report described here, "By the end of 2006, China's manufacturing employment had increased once again to 112.63 million, nearly eight times the level of manufacturing employment in the United States (14.16 million)." The numbers have surely changed since then, but probably not by an order of magnitude.
Those figures could imply many things, but what they seem immediately to suggest is that American workers are extremely productive. They can produce both a high volume and high value of goods, and they have done so without getting a real raise since 1974.
Yet US manufacturing workers face higher unemployment rates than the national average, and often have to accept lower paying work when their plants close down, which should be no surprise. At the advice of the finance industry, wages and benefits have been driven down, policy makers were encouraged not to worry about the decline of the industrial base, and the whole thing was papered over with a massive consumer credit bubble.
When it comes to getting around, Americans love to consider the question of "what if...?"
As a result, our cars have evolved into "land yachts", our trucks have become "monster trucks", and the desire to drag our living spaces around with us has morphed into converted busses with rooms that pop out of the side, a Mini-Cooper hidden under the master bedroom floor, and self-tracking satellite dishes that fight for space on the roof with air conditioning equipment.
And for more than a few of us, "what if...?" has even extended to "what if my car...was a jet car?"
In today's improbable reality I'm here to tell you that Chrysler engineers asked that exact same question, for roughly a quarter of a century, and as a result they actually designed and deployed seven generations of cars with jet engines-and they came darn close to putting the eighth-generation design on sale to the general public.
It's a story of pocket protectors and slide rules and offices full of guys who look a bit like Drew Carey...but as we'll see in Part Two, it may also be a story of technology that couldn't be perfected "back then", but could be reborn in our own times.
On April 14, a manufacturing forum was held with both Presidential candidates for the Democratic primary.
What is amazing is this seemingly was not broadcast on CNN, or on CSPAN. Trade and manufacturing policy area is critical to the US economy, so not covering such a forum is ....well, par for the course? Anything important is obscured, anything divisive is sure to be played over and over.
Guess who didn't even bother to show up? John McCain.
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